Judge orders release of Providence man ICE seeks to deport to Cambodia

A Rhode Island federal judge on Tuesday ordered federal immigration officials to release a Cambodian refugee who has lived in Providence since arriving in the United States as an infant and whose detention last month prompted appeals from advocates and elected officials.

Chansareth Hong’s petition for a writ of habeas corpus was granted by U.S. District Judge Mary S. McElroy nearly two weeks after Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers detained him during a scheduled check-in at the agency’s Warwick field office on July 22 and transferred him to the Wyatt Detention Facility in Central Falls. 

Habeas corpus is the legal procedure used by people who believe they are being unlawfully detained to petition for their release in court. In turn, the federal government must justify why that individual is being held. 

Hans J. Bremer, Hong’s attorney, did not immediately respond to an inquiry from Rhode Island Current about whether his client had been released from federal detention. 

Jenni Nguyen, a community organizer from the Providence Youth Student Movement who Hong’s family has authorized to speak on their behalf, declined to confirm whether Hong had been released. She told Rhode Island Current the family would provide an update later in the week.

Demonstrators had tried to prevent Hong from being taken by immigration agents by blocking the entrance to the parking lot of the Warwick field office on the day of his check-in and held a protest outside the field office, but were unsuccessful. Local, state and federal leaders also tried to intervene in ensuring Hong remains in Rhode Island by writing pleas to ICE.

ICE detains Providence man facing deportation to country he has never known

An ICE spokesperson did not immediately respond to request for comment on Hong’s release.

Hong, 50, immigrated to the United States in June 1976 after his family fled the Khmer Rouge genocide in Cambodia. He is now the primary caregiver for his 9-year-old autistic son and his elderly mother, responsibilities that grew after the deaths of his son’s mother in 2025 and his own father in June.

Hong’s immigration status was complicated by drug convictions he received as a teenager in 1997, which resulted in a deportation order two years later. Court filings from the federal government show that an immigration judge granted deferral of removal under the United Nation’s Convention Against Torture treaty.

Following a ruling by the Department of Justice’s Board of Immigration Appeals in 2002, Hong was released under an order of supervision rather than immediately deported. The federal filing and habeas petition both note the arrangement required him to regularly report to ICE and assist in obtaining any necessary travel documents, among other conditions.

But on July 10, Hong was notified by ICE the federal government was going to revoke his order of supervision during his July 22 check-in at the Warwick field office. A declaration filed by Brian E. Sullivan, acting assistant field office director for ICE in Burlington, Massachusetts, states Hong’s status was changed essentially because Cambodia resumed cooperating with U.S. removals last year.

“ICE expects that the government of Cambodia will likely schedule a nationality interview at which the petitioner must appear to assist in the issuance of a travel document within approximately two to three weeks,” Sullivan wrote.